WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Agricultural problems caused by
global warming in the next two decades could be most damaging
in southern Africa, India and Pakistan, according to
researchers who urge action now to avert a wave of hunger.

Many scientists have predicted that climate change could
harm agriculture in many places, fueling hunger and
malnutrition. These researchers examined climate predictions
and the types of crops grown in various developing regions to
figure out which ones would be hit hardest by 2030.

Writing on Thursday in the journal Science, the researchers
said the nations of southern Africa -- Angola, Botswana,
Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland,
Zambia and Zimbabwe -- could lose about 30 percent of their
main crop of corn, also known as maize.

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Agricultural losses also could be significant in the South
Asia region encompassing India, Pakistan, Nepal and Sri Lanka,
with a drop-off of at least 5 percent in many regional staples,
including millet, maize and rice, the researchers said.

"We still have time to avoid these impacts, but we don't
have much time," David Lobell of the Program on Food Security
and the Environment at Stanford University in California, who
led the research, said in a telephone interview.

"It's certainly our hope not to scare people, but to show
them that there is some basis for focusing efforts and trying
to get things done in a relatively speedy time frame," Lobell
added.

The researchers projected how global warming would affect
agriculture in 12 developing regions worldwide, looking at
local climate projections and at the sensitivity of key local
crops to warming temperatures and rainfall changes. They
determined that average temperatures in most of the regions
could rise by 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit (1 degree C) by 2030.

"We were surprised by how much and how soon these regions
could suffer if we don't adapt," Marshall Burke, another
Stanford scientist involved in the study, said in a statement.

Some places could be spared serious problems including
China, a generally cooler region where climate change is not
projected to be as bad for local crops, the researchers said.

Relatively inexpensive adaptations like planting earlier or
later in the season or changing crops could reduce the harm
from climate change, but the biggest benefits probably would
stem from more expensive steps like developing new crop
varieties and expanding irrigation, the researchers said.

"These adaptations will require substantial investments by
farmers, governments, scientists, and development
organizations, all of whom face many other demands on their
resources," the researchers wrote.